We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Savvy and Witty: a review of Jimmy Failla’s ‘Cancel Culture Dictionary’

Douglas Young gives us a review of Jimmy Failla’s Cancel Culture Dictionary

Jimmy Failla’s Cancel Culture Dictionary: An A to Z Guide to Winning the War on Fun is a remarkably well-reasoned, witty, and surprisingly serious takedown of cancel culture. The book defines it, explains how it came about, profiles its tactics and contradictions, demolishes its arguments, and shows how to successfully push back against this dangerous assault on our freedom of expression since, as Failla sees it, “If speech ain’t free, neither are we.”

Echoing books last year from fellow anti-woke comics Kat Timpf, Greg Gutfeld, and Tyrus, Failla’s thesis is that “we need to stop appeasing the censorship brigades because they keep narrowing the lanes in which we can enjoy ourselves.” Indeed, “we absolutely need to get back to a time when the world knew the difference between a joke and a hate crime. Because any society that can’t take a joke is destined to become one.”

Superbly organized with subjects grouped alphabetically, the book quickly pinpoints the forces abetting the rise of cancel culture. A major one is iPhones, leaving Failla nostalgic for growing up in the 1980s when “the only one who spent all day obsessing about their phone was E.T.”

Of course, iPhones are merely a means to the narcotic of social media which “has created a world where what you say is way more important than the things you do. Empathy has become a brand instead of an actual character trait.” Furthermore, “social media made it trendy to look at ourselves as victims and blame society for all of your shortcomings.”

The rise of this cult of victimhood has armed the censorship warriors with a hyper-sensitivity to the remotest possibility of a slight. In fact, “a world that champions victimhood… [h]as taught way too many people to look for things to get offended by instead of living their lives in search of joy.”

So, while many years earlier comedienne Roseanne Barr got away with trashing the national anthem and satirically wearing a Nazi uniform, by 2018 a social media mob got ABC to cancel her TV series over a single ugly tweet about Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett. In fact, standup comics now face fake fans armed with iPhones “to get attention for calling a joke out as offensive” by unleashing it on social media with no context to try to destroy a career.

Failla further contends that helicopter parenting germinated a generation of completely coddled children convinced they should be protected from ever hearing anything they dislike. Couple this with the Left’s equating words with violence and you have an ideal climate for a cancel culture mob to be generated by a single upsetting statement or even word.

All this toxic brew bubbled over when the Left’s nightmare candidate was elected president in 2016 “after breaking every social media rule there was.” Donald Trump’s ascension to the White House so shocked and enraged progressives that they became unhinged in their fanatical drive to destroy anyone deemed an enemy.

Failla is particularly perceptive about the sad, empty lives manning the cancel culture brigades who he sees as a misfit gang that is dangerously angry, bored, and narcissistic:

an online rage mob that knows nothing about you, save for the fact that they want to destroy your existence in the name of getting likes and showing the world they know better. That’s cancel culture in a nutshell. A collection of people who wake up every day looking for something to get offended by so they can leverage their victimhood into your firing and their clout. The trend has become so prevalent in society that scientists have a word for people who do this: they’re called losers.

Failla is convinced this lonely lot cares nothing about whatever issue happens to be trending on social media that day. It is only interested in cheap virtue-signalling and scoring the “digital dopamine” that comes with “destroy[ing] anyone who achieves something in showbiz that they themselves couldn’t dream of pulling off.”

Recalling Kat Timpf’s You Can’t Joke About That, Failla chronicles what is likely the worst trait of “the outrage mob,” a merciless bloodlust to ruin lives for a typically trivial verbal faux pas because, “whenever somebody says something dumb, online prosecutors always recommend the career death penalty.” This is not only grossly disproportionate, but “losing one’s job the first time you say something stupid isn’t a great strategy for any of us to endorse in the long run, given how flawed we all happen to be.” More ominously, “If someone is so devoid of nuance and empathy that they’re willing to destroy your livelihood for one step out of bounds, do you really think they won’t be on board with jailing you for it someday down the road?”

→ Continue reading: Savvy and Witty: a review of Jimmy Failla’s ‘Cancel Culture Dictionary’

Landlord MPs are about to destroy the Renters Reform Bill. Good for them.

Almost a third of Tory MPs trying to weaken tenant protection bill are landlords, the Guardian complained almost a month ago. Landlord MPs leave Gove’s rental reform bill ‘close to collapse’, the Telegraph reported yesterday.

Good for them for killing Gove’s Bill, and I care not a whit that they are doing it because killing the Bill would be good for them. Adam Smith explained all that in The Theory of Moral Sentiments:

“The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor; and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency,….they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life which would have been made had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants; and thus, without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.”

Gove’s so-called reform would have been very bad for tenants. The Telegraph article explains a few of the many reasons why:

Critics argue that it is not only landlords who stand to lose out. The black mark on a tenant’s record following a court judgment would prevent many from finding somewhere else to live, according to another landlord Tory MP backing the amendments.

He said: “An inadvertent consequence of abolishing section 21 [no-fault evictions] is the risk of tenants who fall into arrears getting a court judgment against their name and ending up on the streets.

“Local authorities won’t help them and this will only add to the homelessness problem.

“The advantage to tenants of section 21 is that it’s no-fault, so even if they haven’t paid that won’t get written down.”

Jessica Parry, a partner at law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, said that as well as increasing the risk of homelessness, forcing evictions through the courts would end up costing tenants more.

She added: “Currently, landlords just write off arrears if they evict a tenant. Now landlords will claim arrears as they’re going to court anyway.

“[Going to court] will be slow. If a tenant stops paying it could take a year to get the property back. It’s a massive risk for landlords.

“From a tenant’s point of view, there are already supply and demand issues – not enough housing – and if you put landlords off it’s only going to make that worse.”

Samizdata quote of the day – How did American capitalism mutate into American corporatism?

In free enterprise, the old rule is that the customer is always right. That’s a wonderful system sometimes called consumer sovereignty. Its advent in history, dating perhaps from the 16th century, represented a tremendous advance over the old guild system of feudalism and certainly a major step over ancient despotisms. It’s been the rallying cry of market-based economics ever since.

What happens, however, when government itself becomes a main and even dominant customer? The ethos of private enterprise is thereby changed. No longer primarily interested in serving the general public, enterprise turns its attention to serving its powerful masters in the halls of the state, gradually weaving close relationships and forming a ruling class that becomes a conspiracy against the public.

This used to go by the name “crony capitalism” which perhaps describes some of the problems on a small scale. This is another level of reality that needs an entirely different name. That name is corporatism, a coinage from the 1930s and a synonym for fascism back before that became a curse word due to wartime alliances. Corporatism is a specific thing, not capitalism and not socialism but a system of private property ownership with cartelized industry that primarily serves the state.

The old binaries of the public and private sector – widely assumed by every main ideological system –have become so blurred that they no longer make much sense. And yet we are ideologically and philosophically unprepared to deal with this new world with anything like intellectual insight. Not only that, it can be extremely difficult even to tell the good guys from the bad guys in the news stream. We hardly know anymore for whom to cheer or boo in the great struggles of our time.

Jeffrey Tucker

Samizdata quote of the day – pondering the Ides of March

People are losing the spirit of the Ides of March. It’s not about just stabbing. It’s about coming together to stab in groups.

– Joseph Scrimshaw

This is a real Police Scotland campaign aimed at adults

Have you met the hate monster?

Have you met the Hate Monster?
The Hate Monster, represents that feeling some people get when they are frustrated and angry and take it out on others, because they feel like they need to show they are better than them. In other words, they commit a hate crime.

The Hate Monster loves it when you get angry. He weighs you down till you end up targeting someone, just because they look or act different to you.

When you’re feeling insecure or angry, the Hate Monster feeds on that.

Why do some people let the Hate Monster in?
We know that young men aged 18-30 are most likely to commit hate crime, particularly those from socially excluded communities who are heavily influenced by their peers.

They may have deep-rooted feelings of being socially and economically disadvantaged, combined with ideas about white-male entitlement.

Hurt people, hurt people
Committing hate crime is strongly linked to a range of risk factors including economic deprivation, adverse childhood experiences, substance abuse and under-employment. Those who grow up in abusive environments can become addicted to conflict.

Don’t let the Hate Monster rule your life
If you have committed or feel you are at risk of committing a hate crime, remember, it doesn’t make you feel better. Maybe for a moment, but in the end, you feel worse. The hate lingers. It can really mess up your life in other ways too, like when it comes to things like finding a job. A police record for hate crime is not a good look on anyone.

Go on, be good to yourself. Don’t feed the Hate Monster.

Watch award-winning stand-up, Liam Farrelly, lead a discussion about the impact of hate.

What to do if you see the hate monster
If you experience hate crime, report it.

If you are a witness to hate crime, report it.

Find out more about the different ways you can make a report.

The official hate monster video would have been perfectly acceptable for primary schools to show to pupils in their PSHE lessons. But if Police Scotland’s idea of a message for adults is “The Hate Monster loves it when you get angry”, I dread to think what the kids’ version is like…

I tawt I taw a hatey monster!

I did! I did! I taw a hatey monster!

Hatey watey monster said hatey tings. Hatey monster said bad tings ’bout all lotsa peepuw coz of pwotected kawactewistic. Hatey monster said, “They may have deep-rooted feelings of being socially and economically disadvantaged, combined with ideas about white-male entitlement.”

Starship has launched successfully

SpaceX launches Starship rocket at third attempt, reports the BBC. This happened about 25 minutes ago.

Pessimist that I am, I did not want to watch the launch in case it blew up again. So far, it hasn’t.

UPDATE: OK, now it has. But it got a lot further than last time.

“Canada’s descent into tyranny is almost complete”

“Canada’s descent into tyranny is almost complete”, writes David Collins in the Telegraph.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is threatening his most tyrannical attack on freedom yet through his government’s proposed Online Harms Act (currently Bill C-63). Brought to you by the same farcically-named “Liberal” party who froze the bank accounts of the truckers who protested vaccine-mandates, the OHA is the government’s overzealous attempt to promote online safety.

The proposed legislation supposedly achieves this by requiring operators of social media services to adequately mitigate the risk that their users will be exposed to harmful content through measures such as publishing standards of online conduct, providing blocking tools and ways to flag and label harmful content. The OHA would create a Digital Safety Commission to administer and enforce its rules along with a Digital Safety Office to support social media users and advocate for online safety. These agencies can investigate complaints, summon people to testify in hearings and to produce records. Costs of all this will be paid by unspecified charges on social media platforms, presumably contemplating Canada’s planned Digital Services Tax on big tech platforms.

Most controversially, the OHA’s provisions on posting hateful content would require amendments to Canada’s Criminal Code as well as its Human Rights Act. While the victims of online “hate” may be comforted by tough new penalties, the changes are radical, particularly a new hate crime offence which can lead to life imprisonment. Worryingly, the criminal provisions of the OHA would give judges the ability to put people under house arrest because they might commit a hate crime in the future. The potential criminal could also be made to wear an electronic tag if the Attorney General requests it.

Emphasis added. The phrase “Canada’s descent into tyranny” comes across as hyperbole until you get to the bit about putting people under house arrest because they might commit a crime in future.

What the bloody hell is going on?

I have one policy on the royals: do not actively seek out information on them. I do not believe that I am going to learn anything particularly useful by following their doings.

But you cannot avoid finding things about them passively. In recent months the following facts have unwontedly entered my conciousness:

  1. The King has cancer
  2. The Princess of Wales was in hospital for a long time
  3. The Princess of Wales has not been seen in public for a long time
  4. The Princess of Wales issued a doctored image of herself and her children
  5. The claim is going round that the Princess of Wales doctored the image herself

My theory is that the Princess is extremely unwell and that the Palace is trying to cover things up. But why? Well, they can be a bit odd when it comes to Royal health. I mean the Queen one day accepting the resignation of one Prime Minister, appointing another, having a photo taken of the event with her standing upright no less and dying two days later is pretty dramatic. And is a little bit suspicious. You do get the impression that we are not being told the full story. A similar impression was given with the Queen Mother – as was – who was forever ending up in hospital with a fish bone stuck in her throat. Always – seemingly – on a Friday night.

And so with this. Do they really think that an essential part of keeping the Royal show on the road is maintaining an image of – how to put it? – invulnerability? Well, they’ve blown that when it comes to the King, so why maintain the pretense when it comes to the future Queen?

Maybe, they’re just stupid.

By the way and for what it is worth, I thought the doctoring was pretty good. So good that I couldn’t figure out what had been doctored.

Update 13/3/24 Top fact-free speculation here from Toby Young. Starts at the 57:53 mark.

Craig Foster has won the victory over himself

The captain of the Australian women’s football team, Sam Kerr, is awaiting trial in the UK on a charge of “racially aggravated harassment” for allegedly calling a London police officer a “stupid white bastard”.

Craig Foster, a prominent former player for the Australian national team, the Socceroos, intially said that Kerr should resign if convicted, because racism is bad.

*

“Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself.”

*

“Craig Foster apologises to Sam Kerr after arguing her alleged remark to UK police officer was racist”, reports the Guardian.

Foster last week urged Football Australia to strip Kerr of the Matildas captaincy if the allegation was proven, to make a stand against racism. He said: “Interpersonal racism against a white person … is still racism.”

But on Saturday he explained that he had changed his mind.

“Like many, I mistakenly thought that comments that referenced any colour and were discriminatory, demeaning or hostile were a form of racism. I apologise to Sam for that mistake,” Foster wrote on X.

“Judging from the coverage, comments and conversations we’re all having, every day, there were major gaps in knowledge about how to deal with situations where the descriptor ‘white’ is used in a derogatory way.

“As many experts and leading anti-racism groups have pointed out, interpersonal comments can be offensive, abusive or inappropriate, however, racism can only be perpetrated against a marginalised person or group, which anti-racism frameworks are specifically designed to protect.”

Four points:

1) Anyone believe Craig Foster’s claim that he thought calling someone a “white bastard” was racist until “experts and leading anti-racism groups” told him otherwise? His apology was so obviously made under pressure that it came across almost as parody.

2) Calling someone a “white bastard” is racist. Obviously.

3) Calling someone a “white bastard” is not “racially aggravated harassment”. It was just words. It must be annoying being a cop and having people insult you quite often, but the only difference between this and a thousand other drunken outbursts is that the presence of the word “white” enabled the cop concerned to slap a ridiculous charge on Kerr.

4) I have a low opinion of the conduct of all of Sam Kerr, Craig Foster and the police officer.

Samizdata quote of the day – they are not called the Stupid Party for nothing

There is something special about this government having enacted some of the most socialist policies of any UK government ever and still being loathed as right wing Tories.

In doing this, they have alienated many of those who would normally vote for them and failed to attract any of those who would never vote for them.

Hence they are deservedly in deep shit.

Hugh Osmond

“The regulatory superpower at work, protecting 300m people from the terrors of Google maps”

Tim Newman, making sure that the EU’s work is appreciated as it should be:

The “DMA” to which Pauline refers is the EU’s Digital Markets Act. There is more commentary from Kevin A. Bryan here.

Just to reiterate: Tories delenda est

I have voted for the Conservative Party in every election since 1979 bar one (I voted Brexit Party in the final Euro elections). However, I have told anyone who asks that I will be voting Reform in the next general election.

This often provokes a response along the lines of: “Reform cannot win, all that does is let Labour in.”

To which my reply is: “Yes, I know. But you clearly misunderstand my motives. If Reform wins a few seats, that’s great. But getting some Reform MPs in Westminster in the next general election is not why I am voting for them, that would just be the cherry on top. I am voting Reform because I don’t just want the ‘Conservatives’ to lose, I want them to be utterly destroyed. I want the ‘Conservatives’ as currently understood to be completely discredited, to collapse, to end. And the beauty of it is, Reform can do that to the Tories without winning a single seat themselves.”

As G.K. Chesterton aptly put it:

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.

For all her flaws, Liz Truss was the last chance to save the party, to actually nudge it in kinda sorta the right direction. But she was defenestrated with indecent haste, proving that whilst the Tories were once a ‘broad church’, that is no longer the case. The Blue Blairite Wets will tolerate no challenge to the orthodoxy, that of an ever deeper technocratic regulatory police state, albeit one in which the technocrats are self-referential buffoons, the regulations are self-defeating, and the police are partisan, cowardly and inept. For there to ever again be an actual small-c conservative party in the UK, the capital-C ‘Conservatives’ need to burn, only then is there any chance something better can arise from the ashes, a movement to correct those mistakes the Tories rejoiced in preserving.

A Tory voter declining to vote in the next general election sends a message: “I am disgusted.”

A Tory voter voting for Reform in the next general election sends a slightly different message: “I am disgusted and fuck you.”